The Chain of Chance Page 18

  PLIMASINE IN THE MORNING

  ORLY—BARBERSHOP

  More I didn’t know. While I was bent over the table I felt another change coming on. The reflection on the table top began fluttering like dragonfly wings; then the whole table rose up and flapped its gray-ribbed bat wings in my face till it completely shrouded the milky glow of the night light. The edge of the table turned limp as soon as I grabbed it with my hands. I could neither escape this rush of transformations nor catch up with it—they were becoming more accelerated now, more monstrous, more majestic, more mocking—they passed through me like a breeze—I closed my eyelids—I didn’t need eyes to see them. I recall making a vague but determined effort to expel the foreign element, to puke it out; it was no use. I tried to defend myself as best I could; I was becoming less a spectator and more a part of these teeming visions—their quivering, shuddering flaw.

  Some time after one o’clock I managed to surface again. It came in waves now, like the process of peristalsis; at each stage it promised to be over, only to become more intense during the sequel. The visions began to let up between two and three, which proved to be even worse than before because now everything assumed its normal appearance again, only this time on a different level of consciousness. How to describe it? The furniture and walls became petrified in the middle of some horrible transition; time came to a halt, leaving only the surrounding world, which suddenly stopped advancing toward me like an avalanche and became frozen in a prolonged flash of magnesium. The whole room was like a gasp between two successive screams; its intended target was manifested with undisguised malice in the intricacies of the wallpaper design, in the picture of the Loire castle hanging above the bed, and in the castle’s green lawns. This greenery was my sentence; I stared up at it from a kneeling position and realized that I had to lose. Then I began attacking the room—yes, the room; I ripped the cords off the curtains and blinds, yanked the drapes down from their hooks, pulled off the bedcovers, and threw the whole lethal pile into the bathtub. Then I shut the bathroom door and broke the key while trying to jam it into the door’s outerlock. Out of breath, I leaned against the doorframe and surveyed the battlefield. I realized it was all a waste of time: it was impossible to remove the windows and walls. I dumped the contents of my bags out onto the floor and dug my way through to the flat metal rings connected by a short rod; Randy had given them to me back in Naples so I could handcuff the murderer when the time came. Now I had him. A bunch of tiny dark objects spilled out from between my shirts—almonds that had fallen out of the package—but I didn’t have time to record them, I was afraid I wouldn’t make it; so I threw a handful on top of the telegram, pulled an armchair up to the radiator, made myself comfortable in it, and leaned my back against the upholstery; then I pressed my feet down on the floor, handcuffed myself to the radiator pipe, and in a state of unbelievable tension waited for it to happen, as in the moments before a takeoff. I was propelled neither upward nor downward, however, but inward, into a hot and reddish fog, surrounded by whirling walls, shackled and chained. Straining like a dog on a leash, I could reach only as far as one of the bedposts. I pulled the bed toward me, buried my face in the mattress as if trying to smother a fire, chewed my way through to the foam rubber; but it was too porous to suffocate me, so I grabbed my windpipe with my free hand and squeezed it with all my might. Despair: I still couldn’t kill myself. Just before losing consciousness, I remember hearing explosions in my head: I must have banged it against the pipes. I also recall experiencing one final, faint glimmer of hope that this time I would bring it off. Then nothing; I died, and I didn’t even find anything strange about the fact that I was conscious of dying. Later I had the sensation of swimming through black waterfalls of unknown grottoes, where the water’s roar was so loud it was as if only my sense of hearing had survived. I could hear bells chiming. The black color turned pink. I opened my eyes and beheld a large, strange, pale, and incredibly calm face bent over me. The face belonged to Dr. Barth. I recognized him at once and was about to tell him something to that effect when I suddenly fainted in a most jejune manner.

  They found me around four in the morning, handcuffed to the radiator, after some Italians next door had alerted the hotel staff. Since it gave the appearance of being an attack of frenzy, I was given a tranquilizing shot before being rushed to the hospital. After learning of the flight cancellation the following day, Barth had telephoned Orly, been told what had happened to me, and driven straight to the hospital, where I was still lying unconscious. It was thirty hours before I finally regained consciousness. I wound up with several broken ribs, a lacerated tongue, a head full of stitches, and a badly swollen wrist caused by my chafing on the handcuffs. Luckily the radiator to which I had been handcuffed was made of cast iron; one made of synthetic material would have broken, and I would have jumped out the window.

  * * *

  A Canadian biologist has proved that people resistant to balding have the same nucleic acid in their skin tissue as catarrhine monkeys, which are also immune to balding. This substance, which goes by the name of “monkey’s hormone,” has been proved effective in the treatment of baldness. In Europe, the manufacture of a hormone ointment was begun three years ago by a Swiss company operating under license from the American firm of Pfizer. The Swiss succeeded in modifying the hormone’s chemical structure in a way that made it more effective but also more sensitive to heat, a factor resulting in its rapid degradation.

  When the skin is exposed to the sun, the hormone undergoes a chemical alteration; if it is then combined with Ritalin it can be converted into Dr. Dunant’s compound X, a depressant, though only when administered in large doses does it produce any toxic effects. Ritalin is present in the blood stream of those who use it, while the hormone is applied topically in the form of an ointment that contains the added ingredient hyaluronidase to enable the medication to be absorbed through the skin and to enter the circulation. But in order to produce a psychotropic reaction, one would have to apply at least two hundred grams of the ointment daily and exceed the recommended dosage of Ritalin.

  Certain compounds, such as cyanide plus sulfur—or thiocyanates—act as catalysts that can increase the psychotropic toxicity a million times. The chemical symbols—CNS—provide the key to the riddle. Cyanide is one of the chemical constituents of bitter almonds; it is what gives them their distinctively bitter and pungent taste. Some time ago a number of almond factories in Naples became infested with cockroaches. The disinfectant used to exterminate them contained sulfur, traces of which found their way into the emulsion used to coat the almonds before they were placed in the oven. As long as the oven temperature remained low, nothing happened; but as soon as the temperature rose high enough to allow the sugar to caramelize, the cyanide combined with the sulfur to form cyanogen sulfide, or a thiocyanate. But when introduced into the body by itself, cyanogen sulfide is incapable of having a catalytic effect on factor X; ionic sulfur must also be present in the reacting bodies. Ions in the form of sulfates and sulfites were traced back to the mineral baths. Therefore, a person would die if he used the hormone ointment, took Ritalin and mineral baths, and ate the Neapolitan-style sugar-roasted almonds. The catalytic reaction triggered by the thiocyanates involved such negligible amounts as to be undetectable except by chromatography. A prerequisite for involuntary self-destruction was a fondness for sweets. Those who couldn’t eat sweets because of diabetes, or who weren’t partial to sweets, escaped unharmed. The Swiss version of the ointment had been available on the European market for two years, which explained why no cases had been reported before that. No cases were reported in the States, because the only product available there was Pfizer’s, which was not nearly so sensitive to heat as the European variety. And since the product was intended exclusively for men, it was only natural that women were not included among the victims.

  Proque also fell into the trap, but by a different route. Though he had never had any need of the scalp ointment, gone to the beach, o
r taken mineral baths, the sulfur ions entered his circulation through inhalation of sulfur dioxide from hypo used in developing photos; the Ritalin came from the stimulant prescribed for his lethargy; and the compound X, from Dr. Dunant’s glasses. All the time the learned and patient doctor was busy running tests on every scrap, every speck of dust inside Proque’s shop, taking specimens of the plywood partition and the grinding powder, little did he realize that the mystery substance was located approximately four meters above his head—in a bag of sugar-coated almonds lying at the bottom of a dresser drawer.

  What had alerted Barth’s chemists and provided them with the missing link were the almonds found with my notes on the table.

  One incidental though rather amusing detail: after my return to the States, I was told by a chemist friend of mine that the flowers of sulfur sprinkled in my bed by little Pierre could not have acted as a chemical agent, for the reason that elemental sulfur, obtained as a solid through sublimation, is monionic and insoluble in water. My friend came up with the hypothesis that the ionic sulfur found in my blood must have come from wine that had been allowed to sulfurize. Following the French custom, I was in the habit of drinking wine with every meal; this last time, however, I had drunk exclusively at Barth’s place, since I never ate any meals out. The chemists from the CNRS must have been aware of this but preferred not to embarrass their boss by insinuating he was serving his guests bad wine.

  I was later asked whether the almonds had been my great discovery. Nothing would have been easier than to give a yes or no answer, but the truth was I didn’t know. During my rampage, when I’d gone around destroying everything within reach, dumping everything that seemed lethal into the bathtub, I had certainly acted like a madman, but in this madness of mine there was an element of self-preservation. It might have been similar with the almonds. I’d wanted to make a note of them, that much I know, though this reflex of mine could have been the result of many years of practice. I had been trained to record things under conditions of maximum stress, to assess the relevance of something regardless of my own personal opinion. It might have been just a flash of intuition that led me to connect the thunderstorm, my sneezing fit, the pill stuck in my throat, the almonds, and the image of Proque making that last trip into the corner candy store on Rue Amélie. But that strikes me as too good to be true. I might have associated the almonds with the Naples affair at the sight of the miniature Vesuvius displayed in the shopwindow. Though not directly related to the case, Vesuvius turned out to be the magic link that put me on the right trail. Though if you look back carefully over my report, you will see there were many times during the investigation when I thought I was on the right trail, and yet nothing came of it. Barth was on the right track, too, though he was wrong in suspecting a political motive. He was right in questioning the method of selection—the “group of eleven”—and also in saying the victims included only unmarried foreigners because the latter were more apt to be isolated from their Italian surroundings by their unfamiliarity with the language and the absence of any dependents. The first sign of a toxic reaction was always a change in disposition, which only someone close to the victim would have been able to detect in the early stages. Subsequent investigation revealed several “abortive cases” involving Italians and foreigners who had come to Naples with their wives. In every case the pattern was identical: alarmed by her husband’s erratic behavior, the wife would start to keep a closer eye on him, and the moment he started having hallucinations she would do her utmost to persuade him to leave the country. This impulse to return home was an instinctive reaction in the face of an unknown danger. The Italians, on the other hand, would immediately be put under a psychiatrist’s care—usually under family pressure—at which time they would be advised to stop driving, to discontinue the Plimasine, and to interrupt their bathing treatment; as a result of this abrupt change, the symptoms would rapidly disappear. A chance circumstance kept the investigation from uncovering these “abortive cases” earlier. In each and every instance someone from the victim’s immediate family would come to claim the prepaid subscription, but since the books of the various spas recorded only the financial transactions, and not the reason for the cancellation, there was absolutely no way the persons in question could be traced.

  There were a number of other factors impeding the investigation. No one likes to brag about using an ointment as a preventive against baldness. Those who made no fuss about going bald, or who preferred wearing a wig to using an ointment, escaped unharmed, though there was no way investigators could know this at the time. Those who avoided the hormone had no reason to testify, since they were safe and sound, while those who did use it died. No packages containing the Swiss ointment were ever found among the victims’ personal belongings because the medication was supposed to be kept stored in the refrigerator. This was easy enough to do at home, but not in a hotel, so rather than take the medication along with them on their travels, the more conscientious among the older men would rely on the local barbers. The directions called for one application every ten days, which meant that only one application was needed during the time spent in Naples. And of course during the investigation it never occurred to anyone to canvass the local barbershops to find out what they were rubbing into the scalps of certain customers.

  And lastly, just as all the victims shared a definite physical resemblance, so, too, they all had certain psychological traits in common. All were men well past their prime, still very conscious of their appearance, struggling with old age but reluctant to admit it. Those men who were already in their sixties and completely bald had given up trying to look younger than their age and had stopped shopping around for miraculous cures, whereas those who were thirty and had grown prematurely bald were not likely to require any bathing treatment for advanced rheumatism. Therefore the ones who were exposed to the greatest danger were those who had already crossed the shadow line. In retrospect, the more closely one examined the facts, the more interrelated they became. For example, the chemical poisonings all took place during the blooming season, when drivers were more apt to use Plimasine, and since patients with acute asthma were physically unable to drive, they would have had no need for a drag intended for drivers.

  Barth was gracious enough to keep me company during my stay in the hospital, so I decided to pay him a farewell visit before flying back to the States. Pierre was keeping a lookout by the stairs but ducked out of sight the moment he saw me coming. I knew what was on his mind and promised him I wouldn’t forget about his helmet. Barth had another visitor, Dr. Saussure, now wearing a shirt with frilled cuffs instead of a frock coat, with a pocket watch dangling from his neck instead of a calculator. While he browsed through some books in the library, Barth spoke to me about one of the supreme ironies of the case: even though it had been inoperative and unprogrammed the whole time, the computer had proved enormously beneficial to the investigation. Because if I hadn’t flown to Paris with the idea of using the computer, I never would have stayed at Barth’s place, never would have aroused the sympathy of his grandmother, and little Pierre never would have come to my rescue with the flowers of sulfur after my fall on the stairs… In short, the computer played an undisputed role in unraveling the mystery, though in a purely abstract sort of way. With a laugh I commented that the whole combination of fortuitous events leading up to the solving of the mystery now seemed to me more amazing than the mystery itself.

  “Now you’re committing the egocentrist fallacy!” Saussure exclaimed as he turned around to face us from the bookcase. “This series of yours is not as much a sign of the times as a portent of tomorrow. A vague premonition of things to come…”

  “Do you understand it?”

  “I see only the warning signs. Mankind has multiplied to such an extent that it’s now starting to be governed by atomic laws. The movement of gas atoms is chaotic, but out of this chaos are born such things as stable pressure, temperature, specific gravity, and so on. Your accidental success looks li
ke a long series of extraordinary coincidences. But it only seems that way to you. You will probably argue that besides your falling down Barth’s stairs and accidentally inhaling sulfur, a number of other factors were necessary to trigger the chain reaction: your scouting trip to Rue Amélie, your sneezing fit, the decision to buy some almonds for your nephews, the flight cancellation, the crowded hotel, the barber, and even the fact that the barber was a Gascon…”

  “Oh, why stop there,” I intruded. “If I hadn’t broken my tail bone in the liberation of France, I wouldn’t have had a relapse on the escalator in Rome, or here, either, for that matter. And if I hadn’t wound up in front of the assassin on the escalator, my picture wouldn’t have landed on the cover of Paris-Match. And if it hadn’t been for the picture, I would have spent the night in Paris instead of fighting for a room at the Hotel Air France, and that would have been the end of it. The chances of my being there at all during the explosion were astronomically small. I could have booked another flight; I could have been standing on another step… Not to mention all the other astronomical improbabilities that came before and after! For instance, if I hadn’t heard about the Proque affair, I wouldn’t have decided to fly back to Rome just when the flights were being canceled… and in a way that was the purest coincidence of all.”

  “You mean your finding out about the Proque affair? I don’t believe it was a coincidence. The doctor and I were just talking about it before you came in. You were briefed because of the political infighting going on between Sûreté and Défense. Someone was out to discredit a certain military official who was playing politics to promote Dr. Dunant. You were caught in a billiard game.”

  “Was I supposed to be a ball or a cue?”

  “Our guess is that they were using you to get the Proque case reopened so they could damage Dunant’s reputation…”